What is Workforce Planning?
Workforce Planning aligns HR needs with business needs to ensure your company can execute its business strategy. HR, Finance, and hiring managers work together to establish budgets, roles, and priorities across the organization by examining total headcount costs to make sure the right number of people are hired at the right time without exceeding the budget.
NetSuite Planning and Budgeting brings financial, payroll, and HR data together so you can plan headcount, salary, bonus, and payroll taxes using actuals from your business. This allows you to quickly build models and plans without having to rekey or reassemble workforce information in a spreadsheet.
Workforce Planning Benefits:
- Improve collaboration between HR and Finance
- Plan your workforce with flexible models that align to how you run your business
- Drill down into what skills and competencies are needed for long-term organizational success
- Predict costs and effectiveness of organizational changes
- Get a complete view of your headcount across your entire organization.
Below are best practices for conquering your workforce planning process:
Gain visibility into your current workforce - Capturing a comprehensive picture of the current and future state of your headcount is difficult due to the dynamic nature of the data. People will get hired and roles will change. And if you try to use spreadsheets, the data will likely be out-of-date by the time you finish your analysis. Your HRMS system won't have all the data you need. Decision-makers need more, such as financial information and contingent labor. Without it, you won't be able to develop a dependable workforce planning model. For many HR practitioners, having a real-time view of their headcount KPIs is a major benefit.
Implement a continuous workforce planning process - Workforce planning needs to be continuous if you want it to be successful. Once you have built your workforce strategy and started implementing it, the job isn't done. A lot of organizations fail because they complete this exercise on an annual basis, rather than frequently updating the plan. Your workforce will change over time, regardless of what you do. People will leave, others will get promoted or retire.
Integrate workforce planning with your corporate strategy - Integrated workforce planning, where finance, HR, and other business unit leaders all share one source of data, is most powerful with an integrated hiring and recruiting plan. Confusion begins when it's done in spreadsheets. And unless you have direct links from your workforce gap analysis to your approved hiring plan, and specific headcount plans for recruiters, it quickly becomes a difficult task to keep all key stakeholders aligned on who needs to be recruited/hired, and when.
Integrated workforce planning removes much of that confusion and frustration for HR leaders by allowing them to plan their workforce in sync with all other business plans - corporate strategy, financials, operations, departmental budgets, and forecasts.
For NetSuite customers, finance teams often start the process alongside the HR teams, which supplies finance with critical information on the entire workforce. The workforce plan, integrated with the budget, revenue forecasts, and corporate financial plan, helps finance determine where to expand next and when, how to staff new locations, and what practice areas to grow.
Harness the power of scenario planning - All organizations need to plan for major changes and be able to react to changing market conditions. Scenario planning allows HR and finance leaders to model various what-if scenarios based on an array of potential outcomes. The types of workforce planning scenarios can range from modeling immediate needs to understanding the long-term implications of hiring, outsourcing, supporting remote workers, and more.
NetSuite Planning and Budgeting for Workforce Planning brings HR, payroll, and finance together in one solution, modeling headcount, and related expenses, and providing a reliable source of real-time information about workforce expenses.
Partner SpotLight
NetSuite SuiteSuccess
NetSuite SuiteSuccess offers a pathway for businesses to succeed by engaging with them continuously throughout their lifecycle. NetSuite delivers a unique set of processes, activities, and systems designed to deliver rapid value. Customers are equipped to make the most of their NetSuite investment quickly and are able to expand towards next-generation solutions to meet changing business needs.
Our Company
MindStream Analytics' senior staff was there at the birth of Business Intelligence . We have been part of building Business Intelligence nationally from its humble niche product status to the ubiquitous analytic tool that it is today. MindStream consultants are well versed in reporting and information management and are ready to help you leverage the power of multiple tier-1vendors. From Oracle Hyperion to IBM Cognos, we can help you select and integrate the right tools for you to better understand your information. MindStream Analytics has experience across a wide variety of industries: Business Services, Consumer Products, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Transportation , and Telecommunication. We have the depth and breadth of experience to help you deliver actionable information to users.
About NetSuite
NetSuite delivers a unique set of processes, activities, and systems designed to deliver rapid value. Customers are equipped to make the most of their NetSuite investment quickly as they see real business benefits, allowing them to expand towards next-generation solutions to meet changing business needs.
Case Studies
Accumen
Thanks to the intervention of MindStream Analytics, Accumen's Finance department can now model their business with a new, more organized structure that isn't conventionally available in NetSuite.
Acme Brick
Acme Brick turned to MindStream Analytics for help implementing OneStream to replace their outdated TM1 solution.
Alterra
Alterra sought the expertise of MindStream to address the challenges they faced in their Capital Planning process.
ATCO Group
Energy conglomerate ATCO operates worldwide in utilities, power generation, and related services.
Avalon
Working with MindStream Analytics, Avalon Healthcare Solutions adopts NetSuite Planning and Budgeting to accelerate budgeting and forecasting processes.
Bayer Health Care
Bayer Healthcare implemented Hyperion Planning and Workforce Planning in 10 weeks to dramatically streamline their Income Statement budget and Workforce Planning process..
BluEarth
MindStream Analytics' partnership with BluEarth Renewables epitomizes the power of technology and collaboration.
Celgene
An Oracle Hyperion Planning Upgrade provides multi-national organization Hyperion Application optimization and stabilization.
Cleaver Brooks
OneStream XF was chosen as the platform that would transform Cleaver-Brooks' Finance processes.
CoorsTek
The collaboration between CoorsTek and MindStream resulted in significant improvements in CoorsTek's financial consolidation and reporting processes.
Elite Body Sculpture
MindStream Analytics' collaboration with Elite Body Sculpture encapsulates the transformative potential of targeted tech solutions in streamlining administrative processes.
Enlyte
Enlyte, a merger of Mitchell, Genex, and Coventry, faced challenges with disparate financial solutions and the need for combined reporting.
Flanders
MindStream Analytics collaborated with Flanders to implement OneStream Consolidation and Reporting solution.
Foley Products
Foley Products was facing a significant challenge with its Excel-based actual management reporting system.
Harte Hanks
The collaboration between MindStream Analytics and Harte Hanks culminated in a highly customized, user-friendly NetSuite implementation.
Interface
Interface used a complex, manual, excel-based FP&A process for monthly review, and the summary data was loaded in OneStream.
Kymera International
Thanks to Mindstream Analytics' assistance, Kymera was able to load all of their data into OneStream and validate it successfully.
MacLean Fogg
MacLean-Fogg partnered with MindStream, a leading implementor specializing in modernizing and optimizing enterprise systems.
MEPPI
MindStream's expertise and experience were sought to conduct a vendor selection initiative focusing on MEPPI's F2023 planning process.
OUAI
MindStream Analytics and OUAI's collaboration showcases the transformative power of strategic technological intervention.
Plaskolite
By migrating to OneStream, Plaskolite has achieved a material reduction in consolidation time and overall Financial Close cycle, eliminated the hours spent compiling and verifying data in Excel, streamlined its Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting model and delivered flexible and timely reporting that enables more strategic analysis of their financial data.
Redwire
Understanding the nuances of Redwire's challenges, MindStream Analytics devised a holistic approach to overcome them. The implementation of NetSuite was just the beginning.
Simon
Simon's existing corporate Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) production application was consolidating at a rate of seven hours, a performance issue causing great headache to corporate Accounting.
Source Code
The successful transition to OneStream revolutionized Source Code's financial reporting.
Subway
Subway collaborated with MindStream Analytics for the NetSuite Analytics Warehouse implementation.
UPenn
MindStream Consulting and AppCare team members are proud be working side by side with UPenn university in accomplishing this implementation and along with continuing our AppCare services after go-live.
USG
USG was an Oracle Hyperion customer realizing that it needed more specialized support for its various Oracle Hyperion applications.
Vantiv
Dividing a hyperion planning application, expanding the hyperion footprint to forecast on the business? Customer categories.
Versant Health
Versant Health engaged MindStream to help resolve the challenges they were experiencing with their consolidation, close, and financial reporting processes.
Virginia Spaceport Authority
The MindStream team implemented the Standard + Workforce NetSuite Planning & Budgeting.
WeWork
MindStream Analytics determined that the best solution was to implement Oracle Essbase Cloud as part of the Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC) platform-as-a-service
WindStream
Innovative use of essbase to streamline and connect hyperion financial management for enhanced financial analysis.
XY Planning
MindStream Analytics, well-versed in addressing such challenges, presented a comprehensive Netsuite solution for XY Planning.